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Israel's Netanyahu Arrives in Hungary, Defying ICC Warrant

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters next to the US house speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, US, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters next to the US house speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, US, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
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Israel's Netanyahu Arrives in Hungary, Defying ICC Warrant

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters next to the US house speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, US, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters next to the US house speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, US, February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Budapest early Thursday on his first trip to Europe since 2023 and in defiance of the International Criminal Court (ICC)'s arrest warrant against him.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban extended an invitation to Netanyahu last November, a day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Orban vowed the EU member would not execute the warrant, despite being an ICC member, saying the court's decision "intervenes in an ongoing conflict... for political purposes".

"Welcome to Budapest, Benjamin Netanyahu!" wrote Hungary's Defense Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky on Facebook as Netanyahu began his visit, and after greeting him at the airport in capital Budapest.

Netanyahu was welcomed with military honors, after which he will hold talks with Orban.

A joint news conference is expected around 12:30 pm (1030 GMT).

'Legal obligation'

Experts say the Israeli premier, who is scheduled to stay in Hungary until Sunday, is trying to diminish the impact of the court's decision, while hoping to drive attention away from tensions at home as he meets like-minded ally Orban.

"His ultimate goal is to regain the ability to travel wherever he wants," Moshe Klughaft, an international strategic consultant and former advisor to Netanyahu, told AFP.

"At first, he's flying to places where there's no risk of arrest, and in doing so, he's also paving the way to normalize his future travels."

Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz in February vowed to make sure Netanyahu can visit his country.

The Hungary trip "goes hand in hand with US sanctions against the ICC," Klughaft said, referring to the punitive measures US President Donald Trump imposed in February over what he described as "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel".

The ICC, based in The Hague, stressed it would be Hungary's "legal obligation" and "responsibility towards other state parties" to enforce the court's decisions.

"When states have concerns in cooperating with the court, they may consult the court in a timely and efficient manner," ICC spokesman Fadi El-Abdallah said.

"However, it is not for states to unilaterally determine the soundness of the court's legal decisions," he added.

Hungary signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in 1999 and ratified it two years later during Orban's first term in office.

The ICC, set up in 2002, has no police of its own and relies on the cooperation of its 125 member states to carry out any arrest warrants.

However, Budapest has not promulgated the associated convention for constitutional reasons and therefore asserts it is not obliged to comply with the decisions of the ICC.

Hungary has also repeatedly floated leaving the ICC -- like Burundi and the Philippines -- and has already decided to do so, Radio Free Europe reported on Wednesday, citing diplomatic sources.

Increasing pressure

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes -- including starvation as a method of warfare -- in Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

The war was sparked by the militant Palestinian group's attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

After Orban invited him, Netanyahu responded by thanking his counterpart for showing "moral clarity".

During the visit, Orban is expected to support Netanyahu on Trump's proposal to relocate more than two million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.

Netanyahu's trip comes as he faces increasing pressure over his government's attempts to replace both the domestic security chief and attorney general, while expanding the power of politicians over the appointment of judges.

"One of Netanyahu's methods is controlling the Israeli agenda," Klughaft said, adding that the Hungary visit gives him a chance to set the conversation for days.

"In such a turbulent period, that's worth a lot to him."

In the past, some top leaders wanted by the ICC have thumbed their noses at the court and travelled to member states with impunity.

Mongolia ignored an ICC warrant last year when it welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin for a state visit.

Putin is accused of war crimes for the alleged illegal deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children since the Russian invasion in 2022.

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World

Torrential Rain and Floods Batter China, Killing at Least 12 and Forcing Mass Evacuations

Cars partially submerged in floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Duyun, Guizhou Province, China, May 19, 2026, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Social Media/via Reuters)
Cars partially submerged in floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Duyun, Guizhou Province, China, May 19, 2026, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Social Media/via Reuters)
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Torrential Rain and Floods Batter China, Killing at Least 12 and Forcing Mass Evacuations

Cars partially submerged in floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Duyun, Guizhou Province, China, May 19, 2026, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Social Media/via Reuters)
Cars partially submerged in floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Duyun, Guizhou Province, China, May 19, 2026, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Social Media/via Reuters)

Torrential rain and floods hit parts of China this week, killing at least 12 people and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate, state media reported.

State broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday five deaths and 11 people missing in Shimen County of Hunan province in central China after rain battered the region. A rescue operation is underway. By Tuesday evening, more than 19,000 had been relocated, Chinese official news agency Xinhua reported.

Xinhua said the county recorded a cumulative rainfall of 339 millimeters (about 13 inches) within a 24-hour period ending at 7 a.m. on Monday. One of its towns once received a rainfall of 240 millimeters (about 9 inches) within just a few hours, breaking historical records, it said.

In nearby Hubei province, some streets were turned into rivers and rescuers had to deploy inflatable boats to help stranded residents. Some houses were flooded or collapsed, Xinhua reported. Three people were killed and four others were missing as of Tuesday morning, it said.

CCTV on Tuesday also reported that heavy rain and floods have caused four deaths and left five others missing in Guizhou Province in southwestern China. In some areas, houses flooded, roads were damaged, and communications were disrupted, it said. One area had to relocate more than 3,700 people, Xinhua added.

Flood-induced casualties are common in China. Last July, rains and flooding killed dozens of people in Beijing.

Separately, 10 people were killed after a pickup truck fell off a bridge in the southern region of Guangxi on Saturday, Xinhua reported.

World

Ebola, Hantavirus Show World’s Risk Preparedness Lagging, Says Pandemic Expert

A health worker monitors visitors arriving at the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB) in Goma, on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
A health worker monitors visitors arriving at the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB) in Goma, on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
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Ebola, Hantavirus Show World’s Risk Preparedness Lagging, Says Pandemic Expert

A health worker monitors visitors arriving at the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB) in Goma, on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
A health worker monitors visitors arriving at the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB) in Goma, on May 19, 2026. (AFP)

The deadly hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks show that while the response to declared public health crises has improved, awareness of pandemic risks still lags, a leading pandemic expert warned Tuesday.

Over six years after the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 pandemic, global efforts to revamp public health crisis response have improved the reaction to the hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks, said Helen Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister and the co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

"The new international health regulations are working," she told AFP in an interview in Geneva.

As soon as the alert was sounded last Friday over the new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and once the world learned a few weeks ago of the rare hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship in the Atlantic, "the response has gone quite well", she said.

"Our issue is now really upstream from that," she said, insisting that far more work needed to go into identifying risks and how "these outbreaks get away".

"I think we need a lot more knowledge around risk-informed preparedness," she said, urging more focus on knowing your risk and "what could crop up", and "be ready to deal with that".

"Those basic issues of surveillance, early detection... We're not there yet."

Clark said the hantavirus species behind the cruise ship outbreak that triggered a global health scare after three people died was known to be endemic in the area of Argentina where the ship departed from.

"But we're not clear how much was known about that by ships who depart regularly from there," she said.

Meanwhile, the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola believed to have killed more than 130 people in a remote province of DRC seems to have spread under the radar for weeks, with tests focused on another strain showing up negative.

"How could this have gone for four to six weeks, ... spreading while not getting the testing results that we needed to show that it was a particular variant?" Clark asked.

She called for thorough investigation of "the chain of events here, and what we can learn from it, and what it says about the capacities we need".

- 'Perfect storm' -

Clark highlighted that the Ebola outbreak especially had laid bare the dire impact dramatic global aid cuts had on disease prevention efforts.

"There's a perfect storm," she warned, pointing to how countries had been "very suddenly expected to make up a lot of investment in the health system which previously came from donors".

"With the best will in the world, the poorest and most fragile countries just haven't got money sitting in the bank to do that, so things will get neglected across a range of areas."

Clark insisted that "global solidarity remains extremely important".

"We're talking global public goods," she stressed, pointing to a confirmed Ebola case in a US national and how hantavirus had "popped up in places where people (disembarked) from the ship".

"We're in this together, and so we have to look to ways of financing preparedness or response which reflect our shared interests."

World

Xi and Putin Meet to Reaffirm China-Russia Ties Days After Trump’s Visit to Beijing

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a picture during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 20, 2026. (Sputnik/Maxim Stulov/Pool via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a picture during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 20, 2026. (Sputnik/Maxim Stulov/Pool via Reuters)
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Xi and Putin Meet to Reaffirm China-Russia Ties Days After Trump’s Visit to Beijing

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a picture during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 20, 2026. (Sputnik/Maxim Stulov/Pool via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a picture during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 20, 2026. (Sputnik/Maxim Stulov/Pool via Reuters)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Wednesday in a meeting meant to reaffirm ties and that takes place only days after a visit by US President Donald Trump to China.

Xi welcomed Putin with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. The two delegations later held bilateral talks, to be followed by a ceremony for signing cooperation agreements.

Putin’s visit comes just days after Trump’s own trip to Beijing – in a sequence that is meant to cement Beijing’s image as an influential superpower, experts say.

“The message is clearly one that China maintains friendship and strategic partnership with whichever power it likes, and the USA is just one of them,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said earlier that there was “no connection” between Trump and Putin’s visits, noting the trip by the Russian leader was agreed several days after Putin and Xi spoke via videoconference on Feb. 4.

The Russian and Chinese leaders are set to discuss energy and security as well as their overall ties. The two sides agreed to extend a friendship treaty first signed in 2001, Chinese state media reported.

China became Russia's top trading partner following after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Beijing has said it is neutral in the conflict while maintaining trade ties with the Kremlin despite economic and financial sanctions by the US and Europe.

China is the top customer for Russian oil and gas supplies, and Moscow expects the war in Iran to increase the demand. China also has ignored demands from the West to stop providing high-tech components for Russia’s weapons industries.

Ushakov said Russia’s oil exports to China grew by 35% in the first quarter of 2026 and that Russia is one of the biggest exporters of natural gas to China.

During “the crisis in the Middle East,” Russia remains a reliable energy supplier and China is a “responsible consumer,” Ushakov said.

Putin noted earlier this month that Moscow and Beijing have reached “a very substantial step forward in our cooperation in the oil and gas sector.”

“Practically all the key issues have been agreed upon,” he said. “If we succeed in finalizing these details and bringing them to a conclusion during this visit, I will be extremely pleased.”

Putin also praised their bilateral relationship as a crucial, balancing force in international relations.

“Interaction between such nations as China and Russia undoubtedly serves as a factor of deterrence and stability,” he said.

Moscow welcomes China’s dialogue with the US as another stabilizing element for the global economy, Putin added.

“We stand only to benefit from this, from the stability and constructive engagement between the US and China,” he said.